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Category: News

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  • The X Factor – Who Makes The Top 10?

    Willow Smith
    In my X Factor live blog last night for Popblerd, I gave out my top and bottom three based on performances.

    Top 3
    Rachel Crow, Josh Krajcik, LeRoy Bell

    Bottom 3
    Stacy Francis, Chris Rene, The Stereo Hoggz

    I hit it right on the money with InTENsity last week. We’ll see if anyone from my bottom three goes home tonight.

    If you thought Marcus Canty’s glitter jacket was a bit obnoxious last night, he’s wearing a white tux tonight during the group song. So is Rachel Crow, but she can get away with it.

    Also, in case y’all are wondering, Astro can rap. Chris Rene can’t.

    And as much as I wished it wasn’t the case, Mr. Anti-charisma, Steve Jones is back. I sort of hoped he was hit by a bus this morning and broke his foot. Alas, my terrible wishes didn’t prove true.

    LA Reid apologized for saying that Melanie Amaro’s performance wasn’t all that creative. He admitted that he was drinking a tall glass of haterade last night.

    Willow Smith is on stage performing Fireball. I have nothing against Will and Jada’s baby girl, but I’m not exactly sure what I just saw. She kind of half-rapped half-sung a mess of a song in a tight overalls jumpsuit. Rather than hit us with some of the elimination, Mr. Anti-charisma introduces Jessie J who has sold over 8 million records worldwide. She’s sold so many records that I’ve never heard of her. She’s either a Katy Perry or Lady Gaga knockoff, I’m not sure which.

    (If you watched the most recent MTV VMAs, she was the girl singing songs between commercials for the audience.)

    Finally, it’s elimination time.

    The first person in is Stacy Francis.

    Your boy Astro is also in.

    Your girl Melanie Amaro is also in. No groups are in yet and Paula is nervous.

    Marcus Canty is next, glitter jacket and all.

    LeRoy Bell is also in and Nicole is so happy that two of hers made it through.

    Rachel Crow is also back next week. Paula is now really, really nervous.

    Josh Kracjik is in. I think both of Paula’s groups are in the bottom two. She might go crazy.

    Drew is in. It’s now between Paula’s groups and Chris Rene. Rene deserves to go the most.

    Chris Rene is through. Uh oh. The Stereo Hogzz and Lakoda Rayne are in the bottom two. The groups are cursed! People don’t want to be fans of more than one person.

    Lakoda Rayne is singing No Air for their survival song. It started out very shaky, but they did their best. Their harmony was off.

    The Hogzz won me over at hello. They’re singing Michael Jackson’s You Are Not Alone. Well, at least the lead singer is. He sort of sounds like Slim from 112. To me, they are the better group, but I imagine it’s much easier to sell four fair-skinned girls to a country audience.

    LA Reid chooses to send home The Stereo Hogzz.

    Nicole admits to choosing Lakoda Rayne because of female empowerment. Ass!

    Paula chooses to not vote, and then says she’ll choose to send home Lakoda Rayne just so the Hogzz have a chance. She was an absolute nut case, crazy mess during this entire process.

    Simon is so going to send home the Hogzz. I can just feel it. He sends home the Hogzz. Damn.

    It goes to show what I said last week. America can’t latch onto groups like they can latch onto solo acts. Next year, they shouldn’t even have groups.

  • The X Factor – Who Makes It To The Top 11?

    In my X Factor live blog last night for Popblerd, I gave out my top and bottom three based on performances.

    Top 3
    Drew, Melanie Amaro, and Stacy Francis

    Bottom 3
    InTENsity, LeRoy Bell, Chris Rene

    We’ll see how well I compare to America.

    I have never seen any of the X Factor UK elimination shows so I’m not quite sure what will happen tonight. One thing I do know for sure though is that Steve Jones’ nickname should be Mr. Anti-Charisma. Where’s Ryno Seacrest when you need him?

    (By the way, last night Drew really knocked it out of the park last night. Check out how she flipped Nelly’s Just A Dream. So creative.)

    I was hoping that they wouldn’t do the corny group song and dance ala American Idol, but alas, they are. All 12 are performing together. And LeRoy Bell missed his queue so badly that anyone who was thinking they were singing live just figured out that they weren’t. They should just eliminate him right now and save us an hour. They performed David Guetta/Usher’s Without You by the way.

    Also, just like American Idol, there’s a horrendously forced commercial spot. This time, the contestants are trying to pretend that they care about winning the show because not only will they get 5 million dollars, but they’ll also get to be in a Pepsi commercial.

    A dude named Outasight is performing a song called Tonight Is The Night, which is also *gasp* the jingle for the Pepsi spot that’s currently playing. I think I’m drinking Coke in protest. The only thing good about Outasight is that I thought he was the host of this show, Mr. Anti-Charisma Steve Jones. Wait, that’d have been a bad thing. Never mind.

    Finally, we get to the important stuff. Each mentor walks out on the stage with their peoples. As annoying as Nicole Scherzinger is every second of her life, I have to give it up to her. She looks well tonight.

    Jones announces that Marcus Canty is the first one through and he Dougie’s in happiness.

    The next person through is Drew.

    The third person through is LeRoy Bell. Um, ok.

    Astro is next.

    Lakoda Rayne also makes it.

    Rachel Crow is next through.

    Chris Rene also makes it through. All of LA Reid’s fellas are in.

    Josh Krajcik makes it as does Melanie Amaro. That means that Simon has all three of his acts into next week.

    One more act goes through and the two lowest voted on acts have to sing for their X Factor lives.

    Stacy Francis goes through so it’s up to The Stereo Hogzz and InTENsity to battle it out. It’s absolutely amazing that LeRoy Bell had more votes than The Stereo Hogzz. Shame on you America. Shame on you.

    The Stereo Hogzz are up first singing some beautiful Bee Gees via Destiny’s Child with Emotions. I guess they wanted to go safe for Paula, rather than in full swag. InTENsity is singing a very scared version of My Life Would Suck Without You (give them a break, they’re kids I say to myself). I can’t see the judges choosing them to go on.

    The InTENsity kids look very sad. Simon chooses The Stereo Hogzz to go home. That’s a bit of gamesmanship there. He doesn’t believe InTENsity is better one bit. Not after saying that the Hogzz were one of the greatest groups going today. Paula chooses to send home InTENsity. She knows she won’t win with InTENsity, but has a small chance with the Hogzz. Nicole in the most annoying way possible, says she sends home InTENsity. You know LA isn’t sending home Stereo Hogzz. No way, no how. LA sends home InTENsity. The girl in the red jacket is weeping hard.

    One thing I learned about this show is that if the Stereo Hogzz can’t get votes, no group is going to win this thing.

  • We Break Easy: Ten Songs I Was Listening to on September 11, 2001

    10 years ago – y’know, before iPods and stuff – it was my general practice to keep a mix CD of my current favorite songs in my car to listen to on my way to and from work. And then, every week or so, I’d make a new CD, replacing the songs I was tired of with fresh new ones. I was listening to one such CD Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001. On my way home from work that day, I was struck by how eerie some of the songs felt in light of the day’s events – the same way the absolutely perfect blue sky of that day took a sinister cast once its perfection had become so abruptly purified of the usual air traffic.

    In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, radio programmers were purging their playlists of songs that, however popular before, suddenly felt insensitive or inappropriate. The nu-metal act Drowning Pool had scored a breakout hit that summer with a song called “Bodies”, a tribute to the joyful violence of a moshpit. The song had been ubiquitous on rock radio and MTV2 all summer, and suddenly it was gone. Similarly, Jimmy Eat World’s then just-released third album Bleed American was pulled from the market, only to reappear a couple months later, euphemistically retitled as Jimmy Eat World. In the place of those “troubling” songs, came Five For Fighting’s “Superman” (at the time, a 6-month old single that had previously fizzled at radio, like it’s superior – and more troubling – predecessor “Easy Tonight”), and a new version of Enya’s “Only Time”, tricked out with 9/11 audio verite.

    In the meantime, I kept my little mix CD, and while I already loved most of the songs on it, the fact is, they’d taken on a whole new dimension for me (in the same way that Five for Fighting song did for so many others). Even now, hearing any one of these songs in any context has a sort of time travel effect, and I’m back on that beautiful, horrible Tuesday morning.

    Eventually Bleed American got its original title back. And “Bodies” would eventually be revived, not only as theme music for professional wrestling, but also as an instrument of torture at Guantanamo. And eventually, my little CD got a little beat-up – CD burning was still a relatively new thing at that point, and my home made mix CDs had pretty short playable lives. But I kept the tracklist, and here are ten highlights, presented with no further comment, in the order in which they appeared on my CD.

    1. “Crystal” by New Order

    2. “Working Girls (Sunlight Shines)” by The Pernice Brothers

    3. “Sometimes” by Ours

    4. “We Need a Resolution” by Aaliyah

    5. “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box” by Radiohead

    6. “Hellbent” by Kenna


    Kenna – Hell Bent by Kenna

    7. “Blizzard of ’78” by Ida

    Ida's ''The Braille Night''
    [no video available]
    “Fixing an eye on the hopeful in a heartless room / you’ll be done soon /
    Snow is falling down and the whole damn town / is covered in white”

    8. “Broke” by The Beta Band

    9. “Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)” by James

    10. “I Want Love” by Elton John